Setting the Scene
By summer 1940, Britain stood alone, facing the threat of German invasion, cut off from its Allies across the Channel. It quickly became apparent that the country urgently needed to rebuild its contacts and intelligence networks on the Continent, and give as much support as possible to Resistance groups, which were emerging in the occupied countries.
Perhaps by accident or because of its central location amidst the airfields of East Anglia and its easy access to London, Bedfordshire became the focal point for the secret counter measures against the enemy. Code breaking, radio surveillance, the training and delivery of secret agents became a round the clock activity. Within the county there were so many sites and locations involved in covert operations, espionage and subterfuge, that one modern-day senior military official described Bedfordshire as the “spy capital of Britain”. 
British Special Operations Executive (SOE) dispatched many hundreds of secret agents from Tempsford; Sefton Delmer established a secret radio station at Milton Bryon, broadcasting black propaganda programmes; Japanese language de-coders were trained in Bedford; whilst the listening station was at RAF Chicksands; and decoding was carried out at nearby Bletchley Park. Even some of the first irregular weapons of war, commissioned by the MOD department, code-named ‘Churchill’s Toy Shop’, were developed and tested in Bedfordshire.
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